NWSL Announces List of U.S., Canadian and Mexican National Team Players for Allocation

Jan 10, 2013 2:50 AM GMT

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As we near closer to the inagural season of the new Professional Women's League, today U.S. Soccer and The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) have announced the list of 55 U.S., Canadian and Mexican National Team players that will be allocated to its eight clubs. Once the allocation process is completed, the club location for all 55 players will be announced on Friday, Jan. 11. All 18 U.S. players on the U.S. gold medal-winning 2012 Olympic team are included in the allocation, while 13 of the Canadian players were part of the bronze medal-winning team. With 23 U.S. players available for the allocation, all but one of the eight teams will receive three U.S. Women's National Team players. Each club will also be assigned two Canadian National Team and two Mexican National Team players.

The process will be conducted from a panel of experts familiar with the player pool, including individuals from the collegiate level, recent professional and semi-professional clubs, and the youth and senior national team level in North America. Players were able to list their preferred destinations, while clubs have provided their preference with regard to specific players and qualities of players desired. The panel will have its own say and input on players' techinical abilities, and based on that input from the panel of experts and teams, players will be assigned numerical values on quality and desirability.

"The allocation will provide each club with a foundation of talent to build a competitive roster," said NWSL Executive Director Cheryl Bailey. "Ultimately, the goal is to pair the teams and players in such a way that we achieve a fair distribution of talent across all eight teams. This is another important step as we continue to build towards the inaugural season of the National Women's Soccer League. We are looking forward to sharing this news with our fans in the coming days."

U.S. Soccer is subsidizing the salaries of 23 players, while the Canadian Soccer Association and the Federation of Mexican Football will each do the same for 16 players.

The NWSL is an eight-team league organized and administered by the U.S. Soccer Federation that will begin play in the spring of 2013. The eight founding clubs are the Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, FC Kansas City, Portland Thorns FC, Sky Blue FC (New York/New Jersey), Seattle Reign FC, the Washington Spirit and the Western New York Flash.